Author
Topic: Kitchen re-do (Read 10787 times)

Questions in my mind:What are you keeping? Are you tied to the range staying in the corner? (Can the hood be rerouted?)How are you planning to repair the floor where the half wall is located?What is your lighting plan? (I currently only see lights in the hood.)What is on the wall right beside the pantry cabinet?How do/would guests most often enter the kitchen?

- -

If it were mine I would probably either move the cooktop and hood over or put the fridge there, or beside the sink as you mentioned. The sink side is nice because if you have groceries you can plop them on the island and go to the new pantry closet or to the fridge. Of course you can do the same with it on the other side of the range.

Your space just seems to me to be asking for an island on wheels which could be locked. I don't know your cabinet style idea, but that's just what I see.

The current focal point is the half wall. IMO it should be the cooktop or that window or the island. I think I would float and extra piece of countertop above the radiator and may some additional cabinetry beside the door.

A square corner on the island is going to feel a little funky with a corner stove. You might want to match that angle on the island or at least sketch it out to be sure.

If you get a good idea, mock it up with some cardboard, posterboard, sheets, whatever and then you can decide if it will work and how it will look.

Your oven and cooktop can probably be separated, you might think about a lazy susan under the cooktop. We got a super susan in our corner and it is divine.

Your oven and cooktop can probably be separated, you might think about a lazy susan under the cooktop. We got a super susan in our corner and it is divine.

Are we roommates? The super susan rocks.

The space looks a little narrow as sketched up, so a rolling island might be the deal. Or a counter height table. Had one of those in our kitchen, but gave it to my brother.

It's probably hard to see but walkway clearances are 48 inches, which is handicap-accessible IIRC. Do you guys have the same?

Yes a rolling island is something we considered just last night. Ikea has a great island with screw levels on the feet that get hidden by a sliding square piece of metal on each leg, so it looks like it's solid but it's not.

Questions in my mind:What are you keeping? Are you tied to the range staying in the corner? (Can the hood be rerouted?)How are you planning to repair the floor where the half wall is located?What is your lighting plan? (I currently only see lights in the hood.)What is on the wall right beside the pantry cabinet?How do/would guests most often enter the kitchen?

Range staying in corner/hood rerouting: This was an old chimney outlet, so I think I could probably reroute it, but I'm not really sure. I like the idea of keeping the hot wall on the same side as the fireplace (it's to the right of the half wall in the pics) just to keep the 'warm' away from the 'cool,' i.e. fridge. However it's a neat idea, and worth investigating. Only other thing to keep in mind is that I am not sure what's under the tile. I am pretty sure it's laid on concrete which is on top of the solid stone foundation. There is no basement on this part. That means that any re-jiggering involving for example gas lines and electricity would mean digging a trench in the concrete, or hiding pipes somehow.

Repair the floor: IF we can find the tile, I'll re-lay tile. Otherwise, area rug. It really ties the room together.

Lighting plan: THere is basically no lighting right now. It's horrible. We will do under-cabinet LEDs per your suggestion, for sure, as well as up-lighting. I am unsure what to do with the giant plaster medallion on the ceiling. I would like to have a nice fixture there, but this room is really two distinct spaces, and I really want task lighting / pot hanger/rack above the island, so I'm not sure how to do that without making the ceiling look 'busy.'

Wall right beside the pantry cabinet: Not sure what you're referring to here. If you mean the spot where the fridge is now, that's one of the radiators. However we could theoretically remove it as the fireplace puts out plenty of heat in the winter, but I'd like to keep it if possible.

Guests come in via either the door leading to the deck, the front door (we have another 'main' front door though) and through the open space between the kitchen/living and dining room.

I see what you mean about a corner island facing a corner stove. But I've included 48" of space from the oven front to the island corner, so in theory it'll be OK. Casters/rolling island would help, but I am of course not against the idea of lopping a corner off in the name of easier access.

gmac one of the things norm abram says in his videos is exactly what you say, he doesn't want lower cabinets, just drawers. We are going the same route, it will make things so much easier. My only concern is stuff getting trapped behind there, but it's not very likely, really.

Also I think we all have the same spice grinder. Mine is black, though.

Another thing we will have to do, is to replace the window. Right now the counter and sink are about 6" higher than the bottom of the window, so you can't actually open it (it opens inwards). We are going to replace it with a two-section window, with a bottom part that doesn't open and a top part that does open. The surround on the window is solid stone and I don't want to get a mason in to build it up - we'll just bump out the countertop a bit to cover it up so things don't get trapped behind there.

We absolutely need outlets. I have one plug in the entire damn kitchen, and I've got a multiplug plugged into it. We will most likely have to have an electrician in to add some circuits for the oven and fridge. I think it's only one 16 amp fuse right now, so if you use the dishwasher, oven, hood, and water boiler all at the same time, the circuit trips. Thankfully the fuse box is right there on the far wall and at eye level, so it's easy to fix.

Another thing we have to keep in mind is how things flow around the fireplace.

Also we're pretty much 100% decided on doing a concrete countertop. We are going to get this book: www.amazon.com/Concrete-Countertops-Simple-Step---Step/dp/1561588822 Which is supposed to make everything very clear. Even if I screw up somehow, it will still be orders of magnitude cheaper to have done countertops ourselves than to have bought even a less expensive granite top.

If it were mine I would probably either move the cooktop and hood over or put the fridge there, or beside the sink as you mentioned. The sink side is nice because if you have groceries you can plop them on the island and go to the new pantry closet or to the fridge. Of course you can do the same with it on the other side of the range.

There's not much we regret about our kitchen. We still might put in a garbage disposal. Let me know if you find one.

One thing that was hard for me when we were designing our kitchen is getting over the idea that we needed under-cabinet counter space. I would recommend getting rid of part of it and putting in full wall cabinets. Why the need for so much counter space? It gets cluttered, it's not pleasant work space, you can get more cupboard space and you have a massive island.

If it were mine I would probably either move the cooktop and hood over or put the fridge there, or beside the sink as you mentioned. The sink side is nice because if you have groceries you can plop them on the island and go to the new pantry closet or to the fridge. Of course you can do the same with it on the other side of the range.

Not sure I understand what you mean here?

I would think about either shifting the cooktop to the left or move the fridge there. The problem with the fridge there is now the fridge will become a focal point.

There is something right beside your panty cabinet on the wall. It may be an outlet or a switch or a piece of molding, but there is something.

I'd put a flush mount in your ceiling medallion. Or a fixture coming out of it with lights which could be positioned to illuminate the island.

Pot racks look neat, but tend to block views and will become the focal point. I have ok pots, but really don't want to put them on display.

Another neat thing we did was to not have a knife block, we have a knife drawer with inserts. It has worked out awesome. I put my high end knives to the left, our crap knives in the middle and our decent knives to the right.

48" of space is quite a bit. We have 3' on one side and a little less on the other, but I did not secure our island to the floor so if I need to move it over I can. Our island is 3' x 6' in the cabinets.

I thought about concrete countertops, but they are not especially cheap when you consider everything. Granite has come down in price in the US to the point it hardly makes sense to do any other surface so long as you pick a lower cost rock. I wanted Quartz and it was more than granite. I also wanted Cherry cabinets and they were so expensive I almost fell over. We splurged on the finish of the island. Painted and antiqued was quite a bit more than stained.

Since you have no outlets you might consider putting in plugmold. You could do that on two walls undercabinet for an affordable cost. In our kitchen there was so much required it wasn't practical. To cut the plugmold to length you can take out the wiring and then use a wood chop saw if you have a good blade. Rewiring the plugmold is the most irritating task ever. If I was an electrician and a homeowner asked me for it I would charge out the wazoo because of how difficult it is to handle.

We did drawers on one large cabinet in the island for pots and pand, but have three with a fixed shelf and a roll out shelf at the bottom. Drawers would not hold things like a mixer and blender upright.

We also did every drawer and door with a soft close. The doors are simple and you can do them yourself, although I let our guy install them. The drawers are a mechanism and you will probably have to buy your cabinets with them.

What really will dress up the look is molding and light rail as well as a side panel on any exposed side surface. I don't know how you do cabinets in France, but I'd suggest looking at several places from custom to big box and see what the options are for them. We used a local company and they sold cabinets made in TX, and then they contracted our installer as part of the price. The nice part about that is I did not have to think about all the moldings. We went back and forth on design and features and then our installer helped with a few changes on the fly.

There's not much we regret about our kitchen. We still might put in a garbage disposal. Let me know if you find one.

Dude, compost! We're doing a special cutout for a couter-flush compost bucket like this:

Anyway garbage disposals are illegal in many parts of France and many other EU countries. In French they're called "Broyeur d’évier" but are pretty much unknown except by us 'mercuns. They're not cheap - I found exactly one for ~500 euros. Germany has them it seems, look for Küchenabfallzerkleinerer.

The cutout is a cool idea. But you can compost 'till the cows come home, you're still going to get stuff in your sink and have to clean out the drain cover. It's icky.

There a big home trade show here every year. There's one stand with disposals there, but the saleschick is a b****. You had to buy there, on the spot and there was no way to get any information if you happen to be in the process of building a house and were only considering a disposal. I think she was French.

Also MDixon we're not buying them at all, we're doing everything - carcass, rail&style doors, drawer boxes - ourselves. Hardware will come from ikea most likely - they might do some things pretty cheap, but their drawer hinges and things are pretty great and not expensive.

There a big home trade show here every year. There's one stand with disposals there, but the saleschick is a b****. You had to buy there, on the spot and there was no way to get any information if you happen to be in the process of building a house and were only considering a disposal. I think she was French.

Sounds about right. I get asked routinely (by the natives) how I managed to procure X, Y or Z. My answer is always the same: internet.

I am constantly amazed at the cluelessness of many French vendors of various things re pricing and customer service. Prices are routinely 2x as much as they are in, for example, Germany or the UK. Bug spray, for example, from 3M, is 30 f-ing euros here, and i can get the same thing shipped from the UK for ~5-10 euros. That, and the 'ol standby, when I ask about a very specific product - staring-blankly-at-me-like-a-deer-in-the-headlights-and-then-telling-me-that-it-doesn't-exist-so-that-they-can-save-face-and-not-have-to-admit-to-being-wrong-or-not-knowing-about-something.